Tag: editing

Upon viewing our footage for the first time I was actually really impressed with our footage. Some of our shots turned out great, and others with a bit of colour grading and time would eventually look just as great! It truly was amazing to see what all our hard work had resulted in, and to finally see our story begin to form and come alive. I was also pleasantly surprised with the audio, which had come out really clear, all the outside traffic that was so noticeable on the day barely audible at all!

Of course, there were a few minor issues / unpleasant surprises we noticed with a few of our shots also, such as the boom making its way into a couple of shots and one scene which had a power cord across the floor. The most annoying part was that this shot was such a beautiful shot too! The shot was framed so that there was two door-ways side-by-side action occurring in both rooms simultaneously, both wooden door frames and a bit of wallpaper in shot. The actors both at some point within the sequence walking right over the cord, which we assumed would render a garbage matte useless as at some-point the actors would just be floating. What made it even more annoying was that the next shot which was framed identically but contained different action, did not have the power cord or fluoro orange marking tape in it; meaning we did actually notice it at some point, just not early enough to realise it would have been in the prior shot! Nothing a little bit of time consuming post-production can’t fix! I exported the sequence as individual frames in order to photoshop the cord out, but at 25 frames a second there is a ton of frames, and it has taken quite a while to do just 5 seconds of this. Paul has since suggested that a garbage matte which turns off as the actors walk through it. This will definitely be taken into consideration when it comes to fine-tuning.

In terms of assembling our rough cut, we had planned it all out so sufficiently and obtained so much coverage that it was pretty easy to piece together. Utilising Paul’s tips from the editing lecture we renamed all our files in regards to what scene, shot and take they were and placed them in separate bins for each scene. We then opted to work on each scene in a separate sequence, as recommended, to make things much simpler. In compiling our rough cut we noticed there were a few shots which didn’t work as well as we’d hoped. The initial establishing shot wasn’t that great, so yesterday Milly and Gianna went down to Carlton to shoot another. Also, the magazine reveal shot where we had one person holding the magazine close to the camera whilst the actress sat further back on the chair (in order to achieve the required depth of field) did not look at all realistic in some parts, the placement of the magazine not entirely accurate. Luckily we took an emergency reveal shot, so we are planning on combining the two to create some sort of dramatic reveal.

With our rough cut all assembled, yesterday evening during our tutorial we had a rough cut screening; which was sufficiently important as it would be the first and only time anyone would view our film with fresh eyes and be able to provide feedback to help us improve our film. In a sense, it was the moment of truth! The moment we would find out if people would actually get the story and humour of our film. So along with the members of our class and our tutor Paul; Rachael and Liam Ward also came down to provide us with some feedback with a complete fresh pair of eyes. I had been so impressed with all the other rough cuts in our class, and was actually quite nervous to show our film. Everyone seemed to really enjoy the film and all got the punch-line and humour, really enjoying the script. The gave us quite a bit of constructive criticism which we will definitely try to take on board to make our film as good as we possibly can.

They suggested:

That we Need to include the sound of dog footsteps, or the dog coming inside before Barry walks away with pierre in his hands

That he title shot could possibly change. Particularly because there is a pretty obvious continuity problem where Lois is leaning back in one shot and then leaning forward in the next shot.

That the toy dog is confusing – perhaps it can be cut out completely or maybe we should just get rid of the audio. “is that you under there”

The sequence of barry looking for pierre can be a lot shorter and not quicker. Perhaps, there should be more footage of Lois not looking for Pierre.

The kettle within the shot is not a whistling kettle and is not needed

The establishing shot of outside the house doesn’t NEED to be included, but we should have a look at the new footage all the same.

They gave us a great deal to think about. So we definitely still have a lot of work ahead of us, including colour grading, fine tuning, the addition of music and the recording of audio for the radio which definitely helps the story make a lot more sense. We are also hoping through the use of sound-effects and music to allude to the idea of the magazines being porn magazines, in order to make the magazine reveal that much more dramatic.

It is all coming along really so far, and with a bit more time and hard work before the final film screening; I truly think we could have a really good film on our hands.

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In the past couple weeks in film-tv 1 we have been completing exercises known as “The Lenny Exercises” , which have proven to be great learning and eye-opening experiences, which will really assist in the creation of our own short films.

Lenny Exercise 1

This exercise involved taking a marked up script and some footage shot by students the year before and cutting our own version of “The Lenny”. I found this task quite interesting, and to be a good refresher in final cut pro which I had not properly used in quite some time. It was good to have to sit through all their takes and decide not only the best takes, but which parts would use an alternate angle or a close-up; this the process we will have to go through in the post-production stages of our own films. It was also very informative about shot construction in itself, as I was able to see the visual translation from text to screen. I enjoyed this exercise, as editing is one of my facourite parts about film-making but also as it was really eye opening into the process that lay ahead. In watching the takes done by the students last year, I also found myself being rather critical, and noticing little things such as when the sound wasn’t matching up between takes, when they stuffed up the calling of the shots or when the boom- mic’s were in frame. However, despite these minor faults (which in hindsight, after filming a Lenny I realise should not have been so critical of..) the continuity between their takes was rather spot on.

Lenny Exercise 2

The second Lenny Exercise known as the ‘Four Shotter’ was an edit in camera exercise which meant that we would have to stop the camera where we would intend the first cut to be, then shoot the second shot directly after and so on. The purpose of this being to learn expediency, how to get through all four shots in a short amount of time with just one take. This exercise sounded so simple on paper, but in reality it proved to be so difficult. Shooting outside it was hard to get the lighting and white balance correct, and setting up the equipment for each shot took way longer than expected. Maintaining continuity between shots was also a major flaw in the construction of our four shotter, one mid shot ending with a character walking across frame, the next a wide shot with this character not in frame at all. This exercise proved how organisation and expediency really do go hand in hand, and that our group has quite a bit of work to do in order to achieve expediency by our shoot.

Lenny Exercise 3

The third Lenny Exercise was the most intensive of the three, involving pre, production and post stages. This was a real eye-opener as to how organised we would need to be on the day of shooting. We had managed to get some actors in for the shoot, but had to pick a location and decide on how we were going to shoot it on the fly. Whilst I think we came up with some pretty good ideas and got through the whole script and shots we needed, on the day we shoot our actual movie we are going to need to be a lot more organised and efficient. I took on the role as First AD for the shoot, which was a rather interesting role, and by the end of it, I managed to call the shots right. We took quite a few extra takes during our shoot which proved to be quite important in the editing stages of the film. The editing stage was a collaborative effort, and I’m quite happy with our end result. I think overall the team dynamics of our group are really good, and the key for us will be organisation and efficiency. If they are mastered, or at least relatively good on the day of our shoot; it should be quite smooth sailing. (hopefully…)

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In the making of this video I just really wanted to play around with reversing all the footage I took to give the illusion of moving away from even though this may not have been what was occurring in reality.